The Beauty of Pressed Flower Art

The Beauty of Pressed Flower Art

Pressed flowers are real flowers that have been pressed and dried in a pressing machine or between the pages of a book. It is a method that botanists, gardening hobbyists, and sentimentalists have been using for centuries to preserve botanical specimens.

Follow the instructions and you will know how to create beautiful works of art using your floral mementos. Pressing flowers is fun and easy. You don’t have to be “artistic” to make your own pressed flower masterpieces; nature will do the work for you. It takes a little bit of patience to wait for the flowers to dry and to arrange the fragile blossoms, but the final product is totally worth the wait.

You can save flowers from a special event and turn them into thoughtful, gorgeous gifts, or you can take clippings from your garden and create art

STEP 1:
Cut and collect your flowers on a dry, sunny day. Flat-petaled flowers are best for pressing. Thick flowers, like roses, will not dry quickly enough and might get moldy. However, you can press individual petals from thick flowers. Violets, cosmos, impatiens, phlox, cosmos, or wildflowers with thin petals are perfect for pressing.for your walls.

STEP 2:
Place the flowers face down inside a phone book or a heavy book. You can line the pages with blank newsprint to protect the book. Place a brick on top of the book for added weight. Leave the flowers undisturbed for 1- 2 weeks. Wait until the flowers are completely dry before you remove them.

STEP 3:
Follow the directions to disassemble your frames. Use the craft tweezers to carefully place the flowers in your desired design. The flowers will be dry and fragile, so use caution when moving them around.

STEP 4:
When you are satisfied with the layout, you can glue the flowers onto the glass. Use the tweezers to hold a flower and gently dab a little acid-free glue onto the back of the flower. Place the flower onto the glass and gently press down on the top of the flower with tweezers. Repeat this step until all your flowers are glued down. Allow glue to dry completely before carefully reassembling the frames.

Finally, proudly display your artwork and share a photo of it on Instagram. We want to see your pressed flower creations! Share it with us on Instagram by using the hashtag #vintagekc and tag @vintagekcmagazine.^

Rachel Kauffman thrifts what she can and makes the rest. Her 1950s ranch home has been called a “virtual cabinet of curiosities,” and this unique pressed flower art will fit in perfectly with her vintage art collection. Contact Rachel Kauffman at rachelannekauffman@gmail.com or Instagram @racheldeerhead

The Beauty of Pressed Flower Art

VintageKC, a high-end quarterly publication, seeks to inform readers of the greater metro Kansas City area (and beyond) of the styles, lifestyles, creative techniques, and arts and crafts of the past and present, and how they fit into the present-day world of people and things.